The prior art has already disclosed various processes for producing layers which are applied to components and used at high temperatures. These include vapor deposition processes, such as for example PVD or CVD, or thermal spraying processes (plasma spraying, HVOF: EP 0 924 315 B1).
Another coating process is the cold spraying process or cold gas dynamic spraying process, which is known from U.S. Pat. No. 5,302,414, US 2004/0037954 A1, EP 1 132 497 A1 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,502,767.
Cold spraying uses pulverulent materials with grain sizes of greater than 5 μm, ideally between 20 and 40 μm. For reasons of kinetic energy, it has not hitherto been possible to spray nanoparticle materials in order to achieve nanostructured coatings.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,124,563 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,630,207 describe pulsed thermal spraying processes. DE 103 19 481 A1 and WO 2003/041868 A2 describe special spray nozzle designs for the cold spraying process.